Battle of Tedorigawa

The Battle of Tedorigawa occurred on 13 Novembber 1577 in Kaga Province during the Sengoku period. The battle saw the powerful Oda clan's army be defeated by the army of Kenshin Uesugi, and Kenshin was making preparations to march on Kyoto when he died following the battle's end. Kenshin's death ended the Uesugi threat, and it nullified the Uesugi victory at Tedorigawa.

The forces of Nobunaga Oda rampaged through western Japan, and the provincial warlords fell one by one. Kenshin Uesugi relished the thought of doing battle against Nobunaga, so he attacked the Hatakeyama vassals of the Oda clan, leading to Katsuie Shibata, Hideyoshi Toyotomi, and Toshiie Maeda being sent with an Oda army to crush the Uesugi. The two armies met at Tedorigawa.

The Oda vanguard was commanded by Katsuie Shibata, and the Uesugi strategist Kanetsugu Naoe was entrusted with carrying out a water attack against the Oda, which would allow for the Uesugi to defeat Katsuie and Toshiie Maeda's forces. Katsuie planned to defeat the Uesugi army before Nobunaga's main force would arrive, but Kenshin secured the embankments by defeating Nobumori Sakuma and Narimasa Sassa. The Uesugi flood attack succeeded, throwing the Oda army into disarray, and Katsuie blamed the disaster on Hideyoshi, who had halted the vanguard's advance. Hideyoshi decided to temporarily leave the battlefield to report to Nobunaga, and Toshiie charged Kenshin Uesugi in an attempt to slay him. Kenshin was able to defeat Toshiie, and he then advanced into the central garrison and defeated Katsuie.

Shortly afterwards, Nobunaga Oda arrived with his main army, and he concocted his own evil strategy: he launched a fire attack on the western portion of the battlefield, sacrificing the lives of his own men in order to inflict heavy casualties on the Uesugi. Both Kanetsugu Naoe and the Oda general Mitsuhide Akechi were shocked by Nobunaga's cruel tactics, and Aya was trapped in the Uesugi main camp. Kenshin defeated Hideyoshi and Mitsuhide before they could reach the Western Garrison and plug holes to lower the water levels, and he also rescued Aya from the Oda attackers at the main camp. Kenshin proceeded to lead a counterattack and defeat Nobunaga at his main camp, forcing the Oda army to retreat, defeated. Nobunaga was ready to cede all of the northern provinces to the Uesugi in order to avoid an Uesugi advance upon Kyoto, but Kenshin died of illness before he could do so, and the Uesugi were torn apart by civil war in the following years.